For the benefit of those who are reading this blog for the first time, we had earlier decided to give ourselves another reason to look forward to Fridays 🙂 A holiday every Friday! Not exactly a real vacation every Friday but more of a photo re-cap of a trip we or either one of us have taken in order to re-live our past travels and all the related memories of each trip.

FANTASY FRIDAYS!

On this 4th installment, we head to Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland in August. Why August? If you, like us, are keen on soaking in a buzzing atmosphere of art performances, cultural shows, visual arts exhibitions, comedy shows and other wide-ranging events, while mingling with people from all around the world (from what we understand, the population of Edinburgh doubles from about close to 500,000 to more than a million every August) as well as experience Scottish cuisine, August is the time of the year to visit Edinburgh as the Edinburgh Festival takes stage. The Edinburgh Festival is not just a festival but a general term for the various festivals taking place in Edinburgh in summer, especially during August. Think of it this way, the price of a flight ticket to Edinburgh gets you ‘admitted’ to the Edinburgh Art Festival, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh International Book Festival and a whole load of side-events taking place in the city. Talk about getting your money’s worth 😉

We’re in the land of bagpipes, kilts and tartans 🙂

The Edinburgh Castle dominates the skyline of the city…Walk to discover the city as well as the numerous free street performances…

Our advice would be to book tickets early for performances you would like to watch before they sell out. No worries if you arrive without tickets though…there are plenty of choices…

Always up for new experiences, we experienced a theatre performance played out through our headphones while guided to different locations in the city…

Solemn grey buildings can be found everywhere in Edinburgh…

Not forgetting the fact that the world-famous series of Harry Potter books were created in Edinburgh by author J.K. Rowling in the cafe, the Elephant House in Edinburgh. The George Heriot’s School below is reputed to be the inspiration for the Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Harry Potter…

Take a break and pub crawl through Edinburgh to taste Scottish ales…

What took us by surprise was how much we enjoyed Scottish cuisine. For some strange reason, we had initially anticipated rather bland cuisine but alas, the Scottish larder of quality beef, lamb, seafood and shellfish etc impressed us both and left us wanting more. Three of the restaurants we tried and highly recommend are the Castle Terrace (1 Michelin star, affordable £24 3-course lunch menu), Fishers (Make the trip out to the Fishers restaurant in Leith, the port of Edinburgh. The food and surroundings of Leith are worth the 3 mile/5km trip) and the Dogs (check out the pictures below!)…

The Edinburgh Festival was certainly an unforgettable experience for us.

If you had to choose one festival to head to in summer in Europe, this should be it! 🙂